UEFA Champions League
Lyon (1st. title) |most_champs= Real Madrid (11) |website=Official Website }} The UEFA Champions League is a cup competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It is widely considered to be the most prestigious football club competition in the world. The final of the competition is the most watched annual sporting event worldwide, drawing 109 million television viewers in 2009. Prior to 1992, the tournament was officially called the European Champion Clubs' Cup but was usually referred to as simply the European Cup. The competition was initially a straight knockout competition open only to the champion club of each country. During the 1990s the tournament began to be expanded, incorporating a round-robin group phase and more teams. Europe's strongest national leagues now provide up to four teams each for the competition. The UEFA Champions League should not be confused with the UEFA Europa League, formerly known as the UEFA Cup. The tournament consists of several stages. In the present format it begins in mid-July with three knockout qualifying rounds and a play-off round. The 10 surviving teams join 22 seeded teams in the group stage, in which there are eight groups consisting of four teams each. The eight group winners and eight runners-up enter the final knockout phase, which ends with the final match in May. Since the tournament changed name and structure in 1992, only 1 club has managed consecutive wins, Real Madrid in 2010-2011 and 2011-2012. The winner of the UEFA Champions League qualifies for the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. The title has been won by 21 different clubs, 12 of which have won the title more than once. The all-time record-holders are Real Madrid, who have won the competition 11 times, including the first five seasons it was contested. Spain's La Liga is marginally the most successful league, having amassed 15 wins (11 with Real Madrid and 4 with Barcelona). Italy's Serie A is the league with most appearances in the final (26). England has produced the highest number of winning clubs (4), although English teams were banned from the competition for five years following the events at Heysel in 1985. History The tournament was inaugurated in 1955, at the suggestion of the French sports journalist and editor of L'Équipe Gabriel Hanot, who conceived the idea after receiving reports from his journalists over the highly successful Campeonato Sudamericano de Campeones of 1948. As a reaction to a declaration by the British press on the part of Wolverhampton Wanderers being "Champions of the World" after a successful run of European friendlies in the 1950s, Hanot finally managed to convince UEFA to put into practice a continent-wide tournament. The tournament was conceived as a competition for winners of the European national football leagues, as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, abbreviated to European Cup. The competition began as the 1955–56 using a two-leg knockout format where the teams would play two matches, one at home and one away, and the team with the highest overall score qualifying for the next round of the competition. Until 1992, entry was restricted to the teams that won their national league championships, plus the current European Cup holder. In the 1992–93 season, the format was changed to include a group stage and the tournament was renamed the UEFA Champions League. There have since been numerous changes to eligibility for the competition, the number of qualifying rounds and the group structure. In 1997–98, eligibility was expanded to include the runners-up from some countries according to UEFA's coefficient ranking list. The qualification system has been restructured so that national champions from lower ranked countries have to take part in one or more qualifying rounds before the group stages, while runners-up from higher ranked countries enter in later rounds. Up to four clubs from the top-ranked countries are currently given entry to the competition. Between 2004 and 2005, the winner of the tournament qualified for the now defunct Intercontinental Cup against the winner of the Copa Libertadores of South America. Since then, the winner automatically qualifies for the FIFA-organised Club World Cup with other winners of continental club championships. Champions (2011-) 2010-2011 Real Madrid (10th. title) 2011-2012 Real Madrid (11th. title) 2012-2013 Málaga (1st. title) 2013-2014 Lyon (1st. title)